One Autumn Saturday – October 14, 2006
Photos and Text Theodore W. Scull

The Chelsea Piers on Manhattan’s West Side once hosted the great Cunard and White Star liners such as the Lusitania, Mauretania, Olympic and Majestic. The original ocean liner piers, designed by Warren and Wetmore, were completed about 1910. Then in the 1930s the largest liners moved north to the new 1000-foot piers in the West 40s and West 50s, leaving the Chelsea Piers to the smaller passenger and cargo ships. By the early 1960s, containerization made them obsolete, and in 1994, Piers 59-60-61 were rebuilt to serve as a recreation center for sports, dining, shopping and mooring private and corporate charter yachts and excursion and dinner boats. In the autumn mostly, the Chelsea Piers also serve as turnaround port facilities for several U.S. flag coastal cruise vessels, especially those making Hudson River cruises during the leaf-peeping season.

American Glory at Pier 61.

On Saturday, October 14th American Cruise Lines’ entire fleet was in port disembarking and embarking passengers and their baggage. They were all bound for a week’s cruise up the Hudson making calls at West Point, Poughkeepsie for Hyde Park, Kingston (Rondout Creek), Catskill and Troy for Albany. The 49-passenger American Glory(2002) was tied up at the southside of Pier 61; 49-passenger American Eagle (2000) southside of Pier 60; and 92-passenger American Spirit (2004) at the river end of Pier 59, serving the golf range.

American Eagle at Pier 60.

American Spirit at Pier 59 with Exchange Place, Jersey City in the background.

Passengers arriving via private cars, limousines and taxis are met by American Cruise Line personnel and directed to their respective vessel. At the gangway, names are checked off, passengers board and a deck hand follows with their bags. The coastal boats then cast off when the last passenger embarks, roughly between 12:30 and 1 p.m. The serenity of these embarkations is a far cry from the thousands boarding at Manhattan’s Passenger Cruise Terminal, the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal at Red Hook and the Cape Liberty Cruise Port in Bayonne, New Jersey.

Charter Yacht Manhattan at Pier 62.

Brunch & Dinner Boat Celestial, Bateaux New York at Pier 61.

Replica Schooners Adirondack and Adirondack II at Pier 62.

The following week all three ACL vessels returned to the Chelsea Piers and they were joined by Cruise West’s 102-passenger Nantucket Clipper (1984) en route from a Hudson River cruise and southbound for the Chesapeake Bay. With four coastal boats being handled, this may have been the busiest day the Chelsea Piers have seen in many years.